September 7th, 2009

My mom received a Kindle for her fake birthday a couple weeks ago and she volunteered me to make her a protective case for it. She decided she wanted me to use her Flea Market Fancy. No problem! So I got busy thinking of an idea and drafting it out. It is super simple and easy to put together and a great way to protect the screen of your Kindle while stowed away in a purse or backpack. Oh, and it’s pretty, too! Don’t have a Kindle, you say…well, it would make a nice little case for other items as well.

Directions

First you will need to decide if you want to have your exterior be a solid piece of fabric, or something patchwork as I’ve done here. If you decide to do patchwork, the following is dimensions and basic directions.

Patchwork Piece Assembly

1. Cut out 35 pieces of fabric approximately 2-5/8” square.

2. Lay out your pieces 5 squares across by 7 squares down.

3. Sew together your squares by rows.

4. Sew together your 7 rows to form your patchwork piece.

**Note** Pay attention to your pressing and make sure to press your seams in opposite directions between each row so you can better match up your seams when sewing your rows together. See example of how you will match your seams here.

Next you will want to lay your fabric or patchwork piece onto some batting and quilt it as desired. For this piece I just sewed along both sides of all the seams in both directions. Trim to 15”x10”. Now you’re ready to assemble.

2. Print and cut out the flap template and lay at one end of your fabric, making sure bottom edge of curve comes to edge of fabric. Pin in place.

3. Trim around curved edge and remove template.

4. Pin around entire piece, leaving a gap in the pins where you will turn the piece right side out after sewing. Sew around entire piece, backstitching at either side of opening.

5. Clip your corners at a 45 degree angle and then clip away the sides a little, as shown. This will make for a little less bulky corner.

6. Clip your curved seam, notching little triangle out around it, as shown. This also makes for a less bulky seam.

7. Press back your seam allowance at the opening and turn right side out.

8. Press the piece, making sure to round out your curve and bring out your points on the corners.

9. Top stitch two parallel lines along the straight edge of your piece. Mine are approximately 1/8” and 1/4” from the edge.

10. With lining fabric facing up, fold up bottom straight edge 4-3/4” and pin in place on the sides.

11. Using the diagram above, beginning on the right side just above the straight edge, edge stitch a scant 1/8” around the parameter of your case, including the bottom. When you arrive at the right side of the straight edge, backstitch neatly a few times to make this extra secure. After arriving back at where you started, backstitch neatly a few times.

Here’s a view of what the bottom will look like when you stitch across it.

12. Grab a self-adhesive Velcro dot set and put into place. Now you can stop here or continue on for one more step to make it extra secure.

I noticed after I was done that the edges could still easily come up and let stray items fall inside and potentially scratch the screen, and since my mom would be storing this in her purse, I wanted to make sure it was extra secure. So I did one more step to help keep the flap down.

13. With flap closed, pin down sides to keep securely in place, and then stitch and backstitch a few times at each side, making sure not to stitch past the straight edge on the inside. Stitch just to the straight edge and then begin you backstitch.

Now the sides stay down, helping to keep any excess dirt away from your Kindle.

To get your Kindle out quick and easy you just tilt back on those sewn corners and it’s easy as pie.

Front View

Back View

Side View – not too bulky!

For those of you lucky enough to have Kindle’s, I hope you find this tutorial useful. And for those of you without Kindles, I hope you’ll share with us what you use this little case for. As always, I’d love it if you shared your creations made from this pattern in my Flickr Group.

Updated :: Sorry about that, forgot the flap template link. It is linked above as well as right here. If the link gets too busy, it might be down for a little while, but if you check back it will be there again after I’m forgiven for all the traffic that gets sent to the link. I’m trying to find a better way to upload documents for all of you that doesn’t have bandwidth issues, but is still free.

Finished Dimensions: 9-1/4″ x 5-3/4″. The Kindle that goes inside of it is 8″ x 5-1/4″ and is 5/8″ thick. This is a snug fit for this Kindle, as you can see in the photos!

This is so great! I sewed a case for my kindle when I got it but forgot to put some sort of flap on it so it always falls out. Not good. Cant wait to try yours! pulling fabrics now! where can I get the flap template?

Cute tutorial! The only mod I would add would possibly be some type of washable plastic piece to slip between the fabric layers to prevent impacts to the screen – that’s the reason I bought the Kindle case that I did.

such a cute idea! I have a friend that has a new kindle and also just getting back into sewing. I am gonna suggest this tutorial to her…but before I do, can you point me in the right direction of where the flap template is. I can’t seem to locate it.

Great tutorial and lovely little wallet, but can I be totally ignorant and ask, What the heck is a kindle?????? Never ever heard of one! Looks like some little personal organiser??? They mustn’t have made it to Aussie yet!!;o] Wendy B

I am jealous of you, your mom, and her beautiful FMF!!! I just signed the petition at FMF Freaks. I do not own a single swatch. Anywho-so what is this about starting a business? I’d love to know what you’d charge to quilt?! Please shoot me an email! I’ve been neglecting my blog/sewing for some time during my move, but I have to finish several quilts for Christmas presents :) (I’m darling day)

hello cristina this is great!i don’t have a kindle but i’ve been looking for a tutorial to make a case for my journal and my small boxes of crayons to take in my bag.could you tell me the dimensions of this pouch?

Thanks for the tutorial! My son has a Kindle and this would be perfect (in manly fabrics – you know!) I promised him something handmade and he wants ANOTHER quilt, but this might just buy me some time!

I am excited to make this for my sister to store her Kindle and I have all the squares cut out. This is my first attempt at quilting — what seam allowance did you use when sewing the squares together? 1/4″? Thanks for sharing the tutorial — great directions and photos!

I’ve made a few of these as gifts, however I oriented mine “portrait” instead of “landscape” as you have done. I also found as a general rule for different e-readers, to add 1.5″ to the measurments of each one, and you get the same results each time.

I just made this last night for a co-worker. The tutorial was very straight forward and made it easy for me to make this! I used my new Accuquilt fabric cutter to cut the 2 1/2 inch squares. It was so much faster than cutting everything out. I loved that this project was easy, used up some of my scraps, and so fast to make! Thanks for sharing!

Love love love my new quilted Kindle cover! This was the first project I ever used batting on and it’s my first quilted anything….so happy with how it came out. Thank you so much for such an easy tutorial to follow!

A Kindle is an ebook reader, you can put hundreds of books on it and it has an electronic voice so that if you are too tired to read you can get the books read to you. I went blind for about a year and I got a Kindle so that I could still enjoy reading. That beautiful patchwork cover is wonderful.

Made one today .mine is a little different as I didn’t do the curved flap. It took me all day to do but was well worth it.a friend saw your post and made a comment that she would like one for her mini I pad .so I made it for her I did add 10 more squares and it turned out perfect. Thank you

I made this also. I did a button and loop closer using a pony tail band for the loop. It leaves some room inside to hold the charger, too. I also slipped in a piece of thin card board the size of the case to help protect from accidental “bumps”. Of course, everyone asks where I got it!